Sometimes it's just a pleasure to sit back and listen.  This is one of those moments - for me, certainly, but hopefully for you too. 

I had the pleasure of sitting and chatting with two icons of the industry - Sean Conboy and the inimatable nonagenarian, Stuart Clark who is not only still shooting at the age of 97 but is a considerable racontour (you can hear me and Sean laughing in the background throughout!)

Stuart started his career in 1941, so his stories are not only entertaining but are fascinating as they cover every photography development from glass plate through to the state of the art digital wizardry we're facing today.

This interview is worth listening to every one of its 90 or so minutes!

Enjoy!

Cheers

P.

If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.

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If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk. 

Transcript

[00:00:00 ] Paul: So there are so, so many things I love about being in this industry, the things we get to do, and in particular, this podcast, and one of the many things is having these moments that you're about to hear, where I get to sit and chat with someone I've known for a very long time, Sean Conboy, fantastic photographer, and just a wonderful human being.

[00:00:20 ] And someone he introduced me to, a guy called Stuart Clark. 

[00:00:23 ] Now Stuart is 98 years old in July this year. Self proclaimed as one of the oldest working photographers in the country, and I'm not sure that anyone's going to argue with that. He started training as a photographer in 1940. That makes this, he's been working as a photographer for 84 years.

[00:00:46 ] And the whole of this interview is taking place in what was, his photography studio in a little town just outside Leeds. It's his front living room, but it's huge. It's got a high ceiling and you can imagine how the lighting would have been hot, continuous lights and families just having the best time with someone who I learned very quickly, is a storyteller and a raconteur, uh, just a wonderful, a wonderful human being. There are lots of things to listen out for in the following interview, and let me draw your attention to just a few. Uh, listen out for the flash powder story. It's very funny. Uh, the story of, uh, People retouching, lots of retouching stories from the 1940s and billiard ball complexions.

[00:01:31 ] . Doing multiple jobs in a day. He used to do three or four jobs in a day, and have the timing so accurate that could include photographing a wedding. He learned his craft. He's great.

[00:01:42 ] He's spent time creating images for press, looking for alternative, alternative images and looking for PR images that no matter how much a sub editor crops them, the brand or at least the story is still very much intact. He talks about the utter love of the job and appreciating what a privileged position photographers like ourselves are in every day of the week.

[00:02:07 ] He talks a little about the role of agencies and how they now manage messages from companies in a way that probably they never did. He talks about relationships and he talks about being positive and persistence. He also talks about the role of the Institute.

[00:02:24 ] Finally, he talks a little bit about photographers always being the fag end of everything, but in the end, what he talks about really, It's the love of his job and the love of his clients. 

[00:02:35 ] Why am I telling you all of this upfront? Well, this is a long interview, but the sound of Stuart's voice and the history that it represents, as well as the fact that he's more current than an awful lot of photographers who I know right now who are much younger, uh, but just, there's something in his, his entire manner that is captivating and enthralling, informative and useful. And so, although it's a long interview, I thought I'd just explain a little bit about why I found it so appealing and why I've left the edit almost entirely intact. I've removed a few lumps and bumps where we all managed to hit a microphone as we're gesticulating.

[00:03:16 ] So picture the scene, there's myself, Sean and Stuart sitting, in armchairs and on couches.

[00:03:27 ] And if you're wondering why it took me quite so long, this interview is actually, it goes back to February of this year, and why it took me quite so long to get it out, it was partly because there was a lot of of lumps to remove and partly because it was this trip, this interview, this podcast that I was returning home from when the Land Rover blew up.

[00:03:46 ] And frankly, I think there's a little bit of trauma there with a six and a half thousand pound bill to re, to replace and repair piston number two. I think my heart just, I needed a minute just to not recall it every single time I try to edit this particular podcast down. It's a wonderful interview. Please enjoy.

[00:04:06 ] I know it's quite long, um, but what an absolute legend. I'm Paul and this is the Mastering Portrait Photography Podcast. 

[00:04:32 ] So, firstly, Stuart, thank you for welcoming us into your home. We've driven quite a long way, uh, to come and see you. Sean, uh, recommended we speak to you, because the number of stories you have make even his collection of stories look Insignificant.

[00:04:48 ] And as we all know, Sean, The Footnote Conboy has more stories than any man I've ever met up until probably this, this moment in time. So to kick the conversation off, how did you become a photographer?

[00:05:05 ] Stuart: It was an unfortunate or fortunate chain of events because, um, I was at the Leeds College of Art in 1940, 41, and I had the desire and intention of being a commercial artist, which is now referred as graphic designer and at that time, being wartime, there was little advertising being done, and so, uh, perhaps I was not sufficiently talented, but I finished up working for a firm who were essentially photoengravers, but they had a commercial photography studio as well, and they were short of somebody to join them, and I went in there and became virtually an apprentice photographer. This was very interesting because at that time, again, there was very little commercial photography advertising being done, and so all our efforts, or most of our efforts, were centred on war work, which involved going round the factories and, uh, Photographing for record purposes, the input of the particular company. And in those days, I can tell you that that was not a very comfortable proposition because we were on total blackout, and therefore, all the fumes in the factory, whatever they were, had very little chance of escaping, so you've got the fumes and the heat, and then of course we were only Illuminating scenes with flash powder, which was an added hazard, and, and so Photography outside in the factories was not very pleasant, but inside the factory, or in the studio, we were also doing war work, and that was to photograph silhouettes, scale models of all aircraft of both the enemy and, uh, and, uh, Home, uh, Aircraft for identification purposes, so that the air gunners were not shooting our own planes down in action. And another very interesting thing which I have always remembered was that the four, or the eight cannons In the Spitfire, that was four in each wing, were harmonized to converge at a point away from the Spitfire so that the Fire, the maximum fire point was when those two lots of cannons converged.

[00:08:34 ] The only reference that the pilots had was a silhouette which we had photographed, so that he could visualize that silhouette in the, aiming sight of his 

[00:08:50 ] guns. 

[00:08:51 ] Paul: a very early heads up display. 

[00:08:53 ] Stuart: Indeed. 

[00:08:54 ] Paul: Yeah.

[00:08:55 ] Stuart: And, so, that was quite an important element, I think, of our war work for the Air Ministry.

[00:09:03 ] The main factory was engraving the, conical, rangefinder cones for 25 pound howitzers.

[00:09:14 ] Paul: Right.

[00:09:15 ] Stuart: And at the time of leaving school, everybody had to be doing war work. 

[00:09:21 ] And so I went to the company on the pretext of doing war work of that nature, rather than going round snapping.

[00:09:31 ] Paul: Right.

[00:09:32 ] Sean: Stuart, could you also, um, I mean you've told me many great tales about your time actually in the, uh, armed services film unit, i think that might be quite interesting, 

[00:09:42 ] Stuart: Well, I was called up and because of my interest in mechanical things and gadgetry and so forth, I finished up in the Royal Army Service Corps. But a friend of my mother's husband suggested that I applied for a trade test in photography. And one day I was called up to the orderly room and they said, We've got the movement order here for you. Um, to go to Pinewood Studios, of all places. I don't know what this is about, but anyway, here's your movement order. So, I went down to Pinewood, and we had a trade test, and I think I finished up, uh, top of the, the, uh, examination. But then I was returned to unit at Catterick, and I was up there for another few months, and then I was posted. And eventually, after about six weeks of the posting, I got another movement order to go back to Pinewood Studios, where I started my course in cinephotography,

[00:11:06 ] and still photog